FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Schiller Institute’s Helga Zepp-LaRouche Addresses Institut Mandela Conference in Paris
July 10, 2018 (EIRNS)—Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche was invited on July 6 to address the Institut Mandela for the African Economic and Consular Days in Paris.
Madame Zepp-LaRouche was invited to speak on the subject “Partnership, Inclusive Growth and Infrastructure in Africa” following the publication of her call to the European Union to apply the model of the Singapore summit between President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un to a European development perspective for Africa. Her appeal, “History Is Now Being Written in Asia! The EU Summit Must Follow the Example of Singapore!” continues to be circulated in the African networks in France, as well as throughout Europe.
The first panel presented the “Singapore spirit” with the participation of the Ambassador of Eritrea, speaking on the end of the war with Ethiopia and the economic perspective for the biggest free trade zone in Djibouti, for real cooperation in the region. (Note also the historical accord between Ethiopia and Eritrea recently).
Following her presentation was Ghana’s Minister Plenipotentiary and Deputy Head of Mission Bonaventure Adjavor at the Paris Embassy, who developed the concept of a new era for Africa—a new era of manufacturing from raw materials, and no longer merely exporting them. He gave the example of cocoa, of which Ghana and Ivory Coast have 80% of world production, all of which goes for export. But he described that cocoa can be a primary material for manufacturing many products, including brandy, body lotion, chocolate, etc., and that the policy of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s government is to do that.
President Akufo-Addo is famous for his public lecture to visiting French President Emmanuel Macron during their joint press conference on Dec. 4, 2017, in which Akufo-Addo said Africa
“can no longer continue to make policy for ourselves ... on the basis of whatever support the Western world, or France, or the European Union can give us.... We have to get away from this mindset of dependency. ... Our concern should be what do we need to do in this 21st century to move Africa away from being cap in hand ... to have a mindset that says we can do it ... and once we have that mindset we’ll see there’s a liberating factor for ourselves.”
Helga Zepp-LaRouche then spoke, defining the long-term perspective for Africa and the world, presenting the “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge” Second Edition report and the physical project for Africa within the framework of the Belt and Road dynamic, as with the high-speed train between Djibouti and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She also presented the other projects the Schiller Institute has developed or promoted, such as the Transaqua project to refill Lake Chad via a multinational navigable waterway, and the extension of the World Land-Bridge into Africa via a tunnel between Spain and Morocco and/or between Sicily and Tunisia, as well as via Southwest Asia.
The audience was very challenged by the optimistic vision of Africa, as Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche showed the photograph of Africa from space at night, as it is now, and as it would be in 2050, as lit up as Europe or the United States are at night today.
The 40 people attending or speaking all belonged to various institutions, such as the International Organization of La Francophonie, and were professionals in law, enterprise, public relations, and so on. Also present was the daughter of Amadou Hampaté Bá (1900-91) who was a Malian writer and ethnologist. As with Cheikh Anta Diop, he is a very important African thinker for Europeans, in particular, to understand that Africa is a very old civilization.
Then during the final panel, one of the panelists brought in the economics of Alexander Hamilton, and how Africa has to apply the ideas of this manufacturing economy. He also mentioned that France’s great Jean-Baptiste Colbert had called Dutch physicist and mathematician Christiaan Huygens and Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini to France to develop a science academy, and asserted that Africa has to do the same today.
The Institut Mandela is dedicated to the strategic mission of Africa’s emergence as well as the “open society” values of peace through “intellectual diplomacy.” Its proposals are conveyed to public policymakers, the international community, private actors, and civil society, so that they can make visionary decisions. Its fundamental mission is to intellectually and institutionally reorganize African countries.
